p. 54“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” You are acquainted with this utterance of David’s on the subject?—Yes; I should think everyone must have heard of it.
What do you think of it?—It would be very disrespectful to David were I to suggest there is any weakness in it.
Do you think there is?—It has never seemed so strong to me as it has to some people.
Where is the lack of strength?—It begs the question: it is a dogmatic assertion, and I never find anything satisfactory in mere assertion.
It depends upon the assertor, doesn’t it? If your father or friend asserts that he has made up his mind to settle a handsome income on you forthwith, you would not think the assertion unsatisfactory?—That is a different thing.
Not if David had as much personal knowledge of the matter he asserts as your father or friend might p. 55 have as to his own ability or intention.—Ah, but you see, he had not, and could not have.
Don’t be so sure about that.—Where is the room for doubt?
In the things alleged concerning David. “The Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day and forward,” that is, from his youth upwards. If the Spirit of the Lord was upon David, he would have knowledge of the things of the Spirit. Accordingly, we read concerning the Divine temple built by Solomon, that it was built to a pattern or plan that “David had by the Spirit.” “All this,” said David, “the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me” (1 Sam. xvi. 13; 1 Chron. xxviii. 12-19). At the close of his days, he said, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was on my tongue” (2 Sam. xxiii. 2). Now, suppose this was true, David would have the same personal knowledge of God that he would have of the earth or sky, would he not?—I don’t know that.
Why, certainly. “The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received the Spirit,” says Paul, “. . . that we might KNOW the things that are freely given to us of God.” “God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. ii. 12, 10). If David had the Spirit of God abiding with him from the day of his anointing to the day of his death, the verities of Divine existence must have been as obvious to his consciousness as anything is to any of us.
But how do we know that David had the Spirit of God?—The Bible asserts it, as I have read.
Yes, but a loose historical statement like that, does p. 56 not amount to much.—Peter says, “David was a prophet” (Acts ii. 29, 30), and that “The Spirit of Christ was in the prophets” (1 Peter i. 10, 11).
Yes, that is Peter.—Jesus says David spoke “in Spirit” (Matt. xxii. 43). You see it does not rest on what you call “a loose historical statement.” You will have to reject the New Testament: you will have to part company with Christ and Peter before you can get rid of the evidence that the Spirit of God was a presence with David. Are you prepared to say that all these were a work of error and imposture?
You press me hard.—Legitimately. The question justifies it, and the state of facts surrounding it. If David was the subject of a Divine illumination, which made him in actual touch with God, I submit that there is something very weighty in his declaration that “the fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” He was speaking with personal knowledge and, therefore, with all the assurance that you would feel in rebutting the assumptions of ignorant people who might call in question the wonderful applications of science in our day.
I see where you are. There is something in it put in that way.—Besides, David does not rest his dictum on his mere authority. There is an implication in a direction of evidence in his use of the term “fool.” He seems to say that a man, with all the facts before him that any man has, must be a fool who says or thinks “There is no God.” This is, in fact, his very argument in one of the Psalms. “Be not,” says he, “as the horse or the mule, which have no understanding.” “Understand ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that hath planted the ear, shall He not p. 57 hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?” (Psa. xciv. 8, 9). This is the argument that Paul uses in another shape: “That which may be known of God is manifest . . . for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. i. 19, 20). This is in fact, the argument I have been pressing upon your attention for some time past.
I have to thank you for your pertinacity. — The matter is of the very utmost moment. Let me put it again. It is really based upon a scientific maxim. Science lays it down that, in the realm of physical nature, it is not possible that anything can occur without an adequate cause. If this is true (and its truth cannot be questioned), consider how God is forced upon us (under whatever name you please), by the spectacle of the mighty universe so replete with works of wisdom and power. Must it not have had a Cause equal to its production? Is not David’s proposition scientifically unassailable, that the man who says there is no such Cause is a fool?